BIOGRAPHYMichael C. Lorek received the B.S. degree from Ohio University in Electrical Engineering in 2009. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in EECS at UC Berkeley under Prof. Kristofer S.J. Pister. He has held various positions outside of academia, including internships at Advanced Micro Devices in 2007 and 2008, Qualcomm in 2011 and 2012, and a research fellowship at NIST in 2009. His current research interests include on-chip magnetic field sensing, energy harvesting interface circuits, and sensor node component integration.

Plug-Through Energy Monitor for Wall Outlet Electrical Devices [BPN768]This project focuses on the development of a Plug-Through Energy Monitor (PTEM) for electrical devices connected to wall outlets. Using a non-intrusive inductive current sensing technique, the load current can be measured without requiring a series sensing element that breaks the circuit. This enables slim profile sensing hardware, and eliminates the power dissipated across series elements as in traditional current measurement techniques. This work aims to design a PCB-based solution that measures load current & line voltage, accurately calculates real power dissipated by a plug load, and reports its information using 802.15.4 wireless technology. Careful system-level optimization is required to minimize component costs, mitigate unwanted 60 Hz noise coupling, and maintain a small PCB footprint. We hope a low-cost device such as this will enable the widespread adoption of electrical energy metering in building wall outlets.